"505 - morphine not found" (morphine500)
11/23/2015 at 09:00 • Filed to: Peugeot 505, mud
15
11|
"505 - morphine not found" (morphine500)
11/23/2015 at 09:00 • Filed to: Peugeot 505, mud | 15
| 11 |
A usual Saturday evening after some family shopping: the kids are restless, my wife is tetchy, and I’m annoyed. The Peugeot isn’t much fun through city lately, so I decide to take a longer, unknown way home. What happens next however, will make you shake your head in disapproval.
This small detour started out harmlessly. After all I’ve got goog maps on the phone, we aren’t far at all, the weather is ok, even if it’s dark already. Through the city we would be home and dry in 25 minutes max. We do have to drive much longer now that I started off in the opposite direction, because all the roads go south, and we need to go east, but there must be some small alley going that way, surely. And look, there it is on the maps, I just turn off the road here to this hamlet, and a tiny, insignificant road will go along the land to this other village that’s connected to the place we are headed. Easy!
My kids love a little car adventure, my wife less so, not right now, but at least I’m letting off a bit of steam. Whatever. So I turn left at the junction, pass through the settlement barely bigger than a farm, and find the road that’s leading us on, according to the mighty goooog. However, it turns out to be a dirt road, a tractor trail like this:
Now, when you are about to go on a dirt path, it’s good practice to do a pre-flight check. At least I should have. Let’s see:
steed is an old Peugeot 505, RWD with LSD and simple summer road tires.
the fuel reserve light is about to come on. I know because it already flashed once in a curve
there’s only one mobile phone in the car, and that has 5% battery life left
there are three kids in the back
we don’t have no spade, no rope, no blankets, no flashlights, no off-road equipment to speak of – why would we…
no map, never been here and it’s dark, so we need that phone to find our way
and finally, but maybe most importantly, it has rained quite a bit lately
Ayep. The sound thing would have been to turn back the moment I realized this is a tractor path and not a road. Turn back to the highway going south and find another road east. But I was in the heat of the moment, and feeling all right, with a great big smile, so I just pushed on, giggling with the kids. First thing I knew we were sliding along the land instead of the road, lol, look, we’re ploughing. OK, here’s the exit to the trail, oh man is that muddy, whatever, just keep on the gas, a bit of slide does no harm, after all that’s what I bought this old girl for! The 505 is riding high, so we have no problems, but it is muddy and then we hit a wetter spot, deep puddle, and the ruts of the tractor wheels throw us around, suddenly I’m in opposite lock, can’t get off the gas now, but there’s a rock, I know it will pass between the front wheels, maybe we’re high enough, CRUNCH no, we aren’t. My wife has closed her eyes, if it wasn’t dark I would be able to see her fingers go white holding on, while the kids keep giggling, but they are getting tense too.
It’s a bit dryer now, for a short while at least. Then there’s a slope, I don’t even try to stop, and power through the mudhole that inevitably waits at the bottom. There’s a grassy field to the left, I stop to decide what to do: we barely left the hamlet behind, it definitely won’t get better later. For starters, there’s a muddy incline to climb right in front of us. It’s really not much, on foot we wouldn’t bat an eyelid, but this is an RWD sedan for crying out loud, what am I doing here?! Getting back in, that’s what, into 1 st , building some speed, up the incline, into 2 nd I’m on full opposite lock, keep pressing the gas pedal, the wheels keep spinning and the 505 is all like I’M BALLZ DEEP MOT*******ER, KEEP ON PUSHING and the BF Goodrich summer streets find some bite and we’re up. I’m not stopping from now on, some puddles get hit, others I drive around through the field, luckily the land isn’t soaked that bad, it’s just the puddles are deep, but elsewhere it’s almost solid. We’re good. Well, if we don’t count the fuel reserve light, that has come fully on, and that the phone now only has 2%.............
I know this isn’t a true off-road trail, not something you need a lifted Jeep to tackle. If it would be dry, it would be passable by a modern FWD hatchback. But it’s damp, downright muddy at places, and the Peugeot 505 isn’t considered an off-road vehicle. Still, it is. Those French engineers built the 505 exactly for conditions like this, to handle tractor trails even in the wet, because they wanted it to work for a grape farmer in the south of France, or for a district doctor somewhere in Africa. It has more ground clearance than some modern SUVs do, it has useful suspension travel, and the LSD rear axle has more grip than one would normally attribute.
We counted a few hares and deer, passed through a few more slidey places, and finally found pavement. There was a last fright, when a railroad crossing was closed in front of us, and the phone was dead by that time, but after a couple of minutes the train came and the bar lifted. When we got to the filling station close to home, she still had around 100km worth of fuel in the tank, and it wasn’t that late – we arrived in good time, after all this.
I have to say I was completely idiotic to venture out on this trail, reckless to the fullest. If we would have gotten stuck, and we could easily have, I would have had to walk quite a bit to find someone with a tractor willing to pull us out. That happened before, and my wife really didn’t want it to happen again. Neither did I, but I just didn’t give this notion proper thought. Instead I channeled my inner Jeremy Clarkson: “how hard could it be”, and pushed on. But the 505 saved me my blushes.
I did get just rewards though: spending an hour cleaning the car the next afternoon wasn’t much fun, and I bet there’s still some mud in hidden corners of the underside, where it will start rusting later… whatever. Here comes the snowy season, this girl will get rusty one way or another.
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
JR1
> 505 - morphine not found
11/23/2015 at 09:10 |
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Nothing like a little adventure to spicy up life. One of the great things about cars
BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires
> 505 - morphine not found
11/23/2015 at 09:13 |
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Boss :)
Things like this make me question as to whether getting lowering springs for the Jaaag would be a good idea or not.
I swapped out the rears for new stock springs a while ago and it’s riding much higher (old springs must have been sagging). Definitely didn’t like it.
However, it would be great fun for rough roads like that :)
Justin Hughes
> 505 - morphine not found
11/23/2015 at 09:22 |
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That reminds me of the time someone I know was going to a job site and his GPS told him to take his 15 passenger van down a snowmobile trail. Cooler heads prevailed.
Highlander-Datsuns are Forever
> 505 - morphine not found
11/23/2015 at 09:27 |
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Fantastic story. The last time I tried something like this I ended up high-centered and had to hike out.
Agrajag
> 505 - morphine not found
11/23/2015 at 09:27 |
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Great read!
Rustholes-Are-Weight-Reduction
> 505 - morphine not found
11/23/2015 at 09:53 |
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505 can handle this (ask me how I know)
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505 - morphine not found
> Rustholes-Are-Weight-Reduction
11/23/2015 at 10:02 |
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That’s what I’m getting at. And yes, please tell me, how you know.
Pabuuu, JDM car enthusiast & Italian parts hoarder
> 505 - morphine not found
11/23/2015 at 10:02 |
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This is great, I love these stories.
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Rustholes-Are-Weight-Reduction
> 505 - morphine not found
11/23/2015 at 10:30 |
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Yes I read the rest of the article, nice write up.
I go offroad with mine from time to time, mostly when the main road is closed due to roadwork. It is really forgiving since, as you mentioned, it sits rather high. I once hit a large pothole on a dirtroad, drove over my front spoiler, stopped, put it in the trunk, and drove on. these cars can take a beating. In France we say that the 505s go to Africa to die, but they just keep going, even in harsh conditions.
I love this car, it never let me down in the 9 years I have had it, I still daily drive it.
shop-teacher
> 505 - morphine not found
11/23/2015 at 10:39 |
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You are a dumb dumb dumb stupid man ... excellent story! :)
I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t done essentially the exact same thing in a RWD pickup truck that had an open differential. With no cell phone at all nonetheless. Other than the having kids with me part, I haven’t done anything like this with the kids yet.
RallyWrench
> 505 - morphine not found
11/23/2015 at 14:37 |
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You’re making me want one!